Kahlil Gibran’s bronze fence
can be seen beyond the pool.
A meandering downhill path,
planted in the spirit of a
Japanese garden ;;;;;; ;;;
;;;;;; ;;;;;, leads to the
house’s entrance.

;;;;;; ;;; ;;;;;;;; share the delights of a floor-to-ceiling glazed
nook, punched through the living-room wall, that offers a borrowed view
of the garden.

integrity of the spare design. They honored the spirit of a modest but
dignified work of architecture that sat empty and unused for 25 years
and polished it into a gem of Modern architecture without increasing
its 1,750 square feet.

A Midcentury maven steered the couple to Mark Hammer of Hammer Architects in Cambridge and Truro, Massachusetts, an architect
noted for sensitive restorations of Modern houses on Cape Cod. The
site and the pool that came with the house posed several challenges,
not least of all the Zelmans’ requirement of staying within the building’s footprint and not compromising its rigorous geometry. “Because
it was so small and constrained by the structural grid,” says Hammer,
“it reminded me of one of those puzzles that had one missing square
and required moving all the pieces around until the solution evolved.”

There are really two architects here, Hammer and Nathaniel
Saltonstall, the original designer of the pool house. Along with his